The State of Wisconsin Blue Book remains the primary one-volume reference source about the state, documenting the organization of the state’s three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial).
Typically, each volume includes extensive description and statistics on virtually all aspects of life in Wisconsin, including major sections on the state’s population, geography, history, election data, educational resources, social services, finance, agriculture, industry, transportation system, etc. Various useful lists are also provided, such as of statewide associations, news media, local governmental units, post offices, political parties, etc. [from the UWDC]

This book is for law students. It is one person’s view of technology and law practice. It includes an introduction to some of the history and an overview of current state of technology. Mostly, the goal is to try to match up what happens in a law practice with the technology that can enable or interfere with those activities.

The books is available online or downloadable in EPUB or MOBI (Kindle) and is licensed under a Creative Commons license .

Textbook makers, bookstore owners and college student surveys all say millennials still strongly prefer print for pleasure and learning, a bias that surprises reading experts given the same group’s proclivity to consume most other content digitally.

I thought this article was quite interesting and very much concur with the findings. As a law student, I much preferred print texts to electronic texts. It encourages the reader to slow down and think more critically and makes it easy to add notes and highlights for later review.

When I’m doing research, I tend to prefer the electronic for quickly locating small bits of information. However, if I find a book or journal that I want to read more critically or in its entirety, I’d rather have it in print.

I wasn’t sure if my preference was due to my own experience as a print native or if it was something more universal. I’m glad to know that it was the latter.

I’m also pleased that these findings support our collection policy at the UW Law Library. While we’ve moved electronically with many reference titles and other materials in which one may one want quick access to a section or two, we still purchase a lot of monographs in print. Journals remain somewhat of a hybrid – many of our subscriptions are electronic, but patrons can easily print out articles if they prefer.

The State of Wisconsin Blue Book remains the primary one-volume reference source about the state, documenting the organization of the state’s three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial).
Typically, each volume includes extensive description and statistics on virtually all aspects of life in Wisconsin, including major sections on the state’s population, geography, history, election data, educational resources, social services, finance, agriculture, industry, transportation system, etc. Various useful lists are also provided, such as of statewide associations, news media, local governmental units, post offices, political parties, etc. [from the UWDC]

The Christian Science Monitor reports that ReDigi, a start-up based in Massachusetts which allows users to resell digital music on their site, was told by a federal judge that producer’s rights are violated by such a practice.

According to the law, e-books are considered an original version of the author’s work. If you’ve already bought a version and then sell it to someone else, you’re making an illegal copy of the original work (the text you downloaded).
By contrast, according to the law, if you sell a used print book to your friend, you’re not making another copy of it, so you’re not going against the author’s copyright.

The settlement, of a 2005 lawsuit over Google’s ambitious plan to digitize books from major American libraries, outlined a plan to create a comprehensive database of in-print and out-of-print works. But the original agreement, primarily between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, drew much criticism.
The Justice Department and others said Google was potentially violating copyright law, setting itself up to unfairly control access to electronic versions of older books and depriving authors and their heirs of proper compensation.
The revisions to the settlement primarily address the handling of so-called orphan works, the millions of books whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. The changes call for the appointment of an independent fiduciary, or trustee, who will be solely responsible for decisions regarding orphan works.

The one notable response to criticisms from the library community was an agreement that, as Google representatives had already stated, more than one free public access terminal per library building may be authorized.
The revised settlement also incorporates some other concerns raised by the library community and similarly interested parties. The settlement will allow for Creative Commons licensing, which means that rightsholders–notably academics–can ensure their works are available for no cost. And Google won’t “provide personally identifiable information about end users to the Registry other than as required by law or valid legal process.”

However, library critics were not pleased by the “vague–and, to critics, fatally inadequate–concession on orphan works. There was also no response to library concerns about pricing of the potentially monopolistic institutional database–an issue that Google representatives say can’t be addressed in the settlement.”

The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium has recently added text eBooks to their Digital Download Center, which already contains digital audio books. See the screen shot below.
No eBook reader is required to view the eBooks – any computer (Windows or Mac) will do. But they will also work with a Sony Reader, though unfortunately not with the Amazon Kindle or Palm/Pocket PC devices.
A small software download is required to “check out” both digital text or audio books. A public library card and PIN number are also needed.
For more information about the digital text eBooks or audio books, see the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium’s Digital Download Center.
Source: TechBits

Google Book Downloader is a free utility that lets you download any book that’s available in “full view” from Google Books. Of course, most of these books also feature download links right on the web page, but Google Books Downloader lets you queue up multiple jobs and convert all of the downloaded books to PDF files.
The application is available for Windows and requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. You can either install Google Book Downloader or download a portable version which you can simply unzip and run from your hard drive or a removable disk.
In order to queue up a book for download, just open the “add book” dialog in the file menu and copy an paste the book code, link, or ISBN number, click search, and then select the book that shows up. To begin downloading, right click a title and hit “start.” and to export a file as a PDF, right-click and hit “export.”
You can find more instructions in the tutorial.

A nonprofit group that provides continuing education for lawyers is making its books available for sale on Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle, underscoring the widening appeal of the digital reader.
The discounts off print prices for digital works from the Practising Law Institute will be much smaller than those typical of Kindle best-sellers [only a 20% discount from the print edition]….
“There are a lot of practical reasons to believe that the digital market may well be more profitable for publishers of legal, medical and educational texts,” said Andrew Frank, a vice president at market-research firm Gartner Inc. “Since these texts are reference material, the ability to index them and set up bookmarks, which you can do easily with the Kindle, will save time and money for users.”…
The PLI said 67 of its 90 titles are now available in the Kindle format.